There’s nothing quite like waking up inside
a suite instead of an arbor. Nice view.
I never know if this is your room or
mine. We can blame the champagne if you like.
But I knew we would wind these sheets when I
blew on your dice, & you dropped them as if
scalded. Even the pit boss half-smiled.
Even I half-smiled when you winced, & claimed
you’d rather have me than luck. Hopelessly
cute. I can’t give you anything but love,
baby. Sometimes, not even that. It’s late.
Phoebus & his chariot, & all that.
What time is check-out? No, I really can’t.  
You’re sweet, but I have a flight to catch.
Where the hell is my other sandal? What?
Oh… sure. You’re welcome. Whatever, that’s what
I do. It’s not such a big deal, you don’t
have to go all dewy-eyed like that.
No, stay in bed. Order breakfast. I’m off.
Don’t go changin’… Ha! I know. As if
you could. Text me sometime. I like to get
texts. Don’t look so sad. Do you think this
is the only hotel room in the world?
Besides, Lenny Cohen’s a hundred floors
above, & I promised I’d ride with him
to the airport.  So keep the faith, baby.
I’ll leave the Do Not Disturb sign in place.
What? Really? Okay, okay…  but try not
to smear my lipstick. What? No, I meant it.
How could I lie, after all this time?



The veil drops, like a dime, the other shoe,
a high heel no doubt, dropped from on high.
In this redoubt of doubt, this fortress
of solicitude, you reach out to grasp
a hand & clasp your fingers round a cloud.
Partly sunny, but still. The sun never
forgets a face, only what that face meant,
once. The light, diffuse. Did I say veil?
I meant mask. The eyes, a dead giveaway.
The question goes unasked. I won’t say no,
how could I? Time will give you the reasons.
How tender becomes tinder, & tinder
tender, & how both collapse into take.
How something sighs, extends, & strokes opaque.

I wake up every morning in tilt, bruised
from ball & bumper, rubbing aching wrists.
I brush my teeth by backglass, & wonder
how one more game can possibly still thrill.
I break another dollar just to hear
its divided self collide in pocket,
clamoring to disappear. Will this be
a two player or a single? George’s
face never looks anywhere but left.
Somewhere in the distance is a free game,
an extra ball, Shoot Again! Well, why not.
It’s only gravity. Everyone must
feel it. Into the V that’s never closed
a steely heaviness rockets, helpless.



Dissolve: salt of days on a hollow tongue.
Waitress knocks over the shaker & fails
to throw a blind pinch over her shoulder.
Doesn’t know, doesn’t care. You knock on wood
& find plastic. You still avoid a hat
on a bed, but only because you have
a hat to go awry, a bed that longs
for it. All thinking magical, & just
as dissolved & hollow as the echo
of strange spices, the memory of taste.
To describe it is somehow to betray,
a jinx. Better to play a sort of Sphinx,
whispering secrets too softly to hear.
Better sorry than safe. Pass the pepper.



Unwrap the bandages. What do you see?
He’s all eaten away. Meddling fools;
all you wanted was to be left alone.
This is the price of being interesting:
everyone looks, no one sees. Vanity
makes a little bonfire in your soul
that paints the faces red & warms nothing.
Someone says the phrase good looking, & all
you can do is sneeze. A benediction,
good look, good luck. Look is less than nothing,
more then everything, an eye for an eye
that blinds beholder & beheld alike
so they may see. So they may see. So they
may see. You see? Take off your dark glasses.
Transparent retinas refract no gazes; 
only the visible is mystery.



To be beloved & know no one cares
must be what celebrity feels like.
The world is not a moveable feast
of funhouse mirrors, but a Stonehenge:
gray, immovable, without clear answers.
Maybe it’s about the stars, maybe not.
All you can do is make up a story,
oh no, a story? Please, not another one.
Well, someone built it for some reason.
Someone long ago placed all these mirrors
here, at these angles, to confuse the light.
When you lift your sunglasses, my face
disappears into the granite of your eyes.
Mirror, star, stone. Which is it? What am I?
What are you, & why do you stare so?



Faberge foil, green plastic tinsel, pink
wicker, & so many deaf chocolates,
empty eyes imploring, mute. Watery dye,
& the disappointment, the gap between
idea & execution, wondering
why are we doing this, anyway?
Not understanding, not yet, that it’s all
about the chicks: that one day, you’ll be
in the circle of life like hips inside
a hula-hoop, frantic, trying to just
keep it aloft. One day, you’ll know it’s sex
& (oh really?) coming back from the dead.
You’ll know it’s about trying to write
a sonnet about her bonnet, & failing,
& always some other spring to try again. 



After many months of descent, we came
to the end of the stairs. A metal hatch
spun open; we stood in the glass belly,
suspended like a turret gunner, &
gazed into the most perfect pitch black,
empty, infinite, as if the sky itself
had its own sky, & that sky had a sky.
What is this place, I asked at last;
the guide said, You’ve heard of bottomless pits?
This is what lies beneath bottomlessness.
You said, That makes us bats in the belfry.
I held your hand, clinging to the roof.
After a time, we saw two dim smudges,
what could only be called galaxies,
colliding. You smiled. Wherever you go,
there you are. Your palm, cool & dry, in mine. 

I forget how you threaded the needle.
I forget how you annihilated space.
I forget your seven unspoken languages.
I forget how you held a stand-up bass.
I forget your impression of Meryl Streep.
I forget your pinks & browns, your lace.
I forget your stalkers, your alcoholic ex,
I forget your bulldog, dead father, false face.
I forget a thousand photos that can’t be unseen.
I forget your un-accident, un-rape, un-court case.
I forget your born & unborn children.
I forget the description of “our place.”
I forget what I wrote on postcards to nowhere.
I forget your fears, your passions, your tastes.
I forget my faith.
I forget what I told myself yesterday.
I forget what I tell myself today.
I forget what I’ll tell myself tomorrow,
the future that stretches out like a song,
the only one I truly know by heart. 

Counting the countless hours misspent
in TooMuchThink, an office windowless,
convinced you did this instead of this,
poor that never entering the picture,
a clerk on graveyard shift in a graveyard.
In the meaningless work of watchfulness,
you, loitering with intent to rapture,
espy the unraveling thread of self,
& know it has no end. So you pull it.
What else is there to do between the last
conversation & the first good morning?
Dawn turns over the hourglass brain.
So much sand. Blood pounds thoughts to pieces,
& you count the shells on distant beaches.